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TO RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 

THE MAJ^, 

WHOSE CONDUCT THROUGH LIFE HAS WON FOK HIM HONORS, SUCH 

ONIA AS DUTY IN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC PLACE 

AWARD TO THE FAITHFUL; 

THE CITIZEN, 

WHOSE KARK VIRTUES HAVE GIVEN STRENGTH ALIKE TO THE INDIVIDUAL 

AND THE COMMUNITY, ATTESTING A NOBLE MANHOOD 

WORTHY OF EXAMPLE AND IMITATION; 

THE CHIEF MAGISTRATE, 

WHO, WALKING WHERE WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN LEAD THE WAY, HOLDS 

SECURELY THE TRUST OP A NATION COMMITTED TO HIM, AND 

IN WHOSE KEEPING, FOR A TIME, IS REPOSED THE 

PROSPERiry OF THE PEOPLE AND THE 

HONOR AND SACRED TRUSTS 

OF THE REPUBLIC, ' 

THESE PAGES, 

THE PRESENTATION OF AN EARNEST WORD IN BEHALF Ol' \MERICAN 

INTERESTS, ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



TO THE READER. 



I have endeavored, in the following lecture, to present a line of dis- 
cussion which I believe to be valuable to the American people in aiding 
to direct their efforts to maintain law and order, and to build up the 
American nation and promote the civilization of the, country. 

My faith in reference to the political affairs of the country is founded 
upon the views and principles of Alexander Hamilton. And in so far as 
his teachings can be wrought into the constitution of this government, 
according to the most enlightened and best judgment of our living states- 
men, so far do I believe it to be the bounden duty of those charged with 
making and administering the laws to speedily act. 

If I err in my estimation of Mr. Hamilton, I err with many illustrious 
men of America. Said Mr. Benton in writing of Hamilton : 

He was the man most eminently and variously endowed of all the eminent men of 
his day — at once soldier and statesman, with a head to conceive and a hand to execute ; 
a writer, an orator, a jurist; an organizing mind , able to grasp the greatest system; an 
administrative, to execute the smallest details ; wholly turned to the practical business 
of life, and with a capacity for application and production which teemed with gigantic 
labors, each worthy to be the sole product of a single master intellect, but lavished in 
litters from the ever-teeming fecundity of his prolific genius. Hard his fate, when, 
withdrawing from public life at the age of thirty-four, he felt himself constrained to 
appeal to posterity for that justice which contemporaries withheld from him. And the 
appeal was not in vain; statues rise to his memory, history embalms his name, posterity 
will do justice to the man who at the age of twenty was " the principal and most confi- 
dential aid of Washington," who retained the love and confidence of the father of his 
country to the last ; and to whom honorable opponents, while opposing his systems of 
policy, accorded honor, and patriotism, and social aftection, and transcendent abilities. 

Apart from the duty of perfecting the American system of govern- 
ment, the vast territorial extent of our country, the inexhaustible resour- 
ces, the boundless facilities for commercial transportation and the inter- 
communication of the people, all bespeak a rapid and imperial growth of 
wealth, invention and population, which will constantly interweave the 
relations of government and civilization and increase the responsibility 
of the individual to the community and the duty of the government 
to the people. All these considerations require a wise and patriotic 
enactment and administration of the laws essential to the growth and 
progress and destiny of the country. 



VI 



My purpose has been, in the production of these pages, to express 
in an earnest way a few thoughts touching the American system of gov- 
ernment and the interests of the people, under the Constitution, with a 
view, if possible, to contribute some good to the general discussion, by 
adding, as I believe, some thoughts worthy of recognition. If I have 
accomplished this end, even in the smallest way, I shall deem my labor 
not in vain. For, be my labors many or few, my work much or little, I 
have an abiding faith in an imperial destiny of the Saxon blood on this 
contment and this hemisphere, and under the American Constitution. I 
see with the eyes of my soul that destiny slowly but surely growing out 
of the genius, the industry and the mental activity of the people. ^And 
to that destiny let all men be committed. 

L. U. REAVIS. 

St. Louis, Mo., November 1, 1877. 



EXPLANATORY WORDS. 



What shall we do to be saved? 



There is no Liberty, but the Liberty of Law. 



License, without the authority of Law, leads to Anarchy. 



Full work and full pay is the Law for him who owns and him who earns. 



•• For if they do these things in a gi-een tree, what shall be done in the dry?" 



" Our national birth was the beginning of a new history, the formation and progress 
of an untried political system, which separates us from the past and connects us ^ith the 
futirre only; and so far as regards the natural rights of man, in moral, political and 
national life, we may confidently assume that our country is destined to be the great 
nation of futurity.'' 



I desire to speak to you of human powers and of human sufferings ; of the powers 
and the sufferings, not of the selected Few to whom Fortune has assigned property and 
station, and along with these, voice and influence in the world's councils; but of the 
Children of Labor, of the millions who say little and do much, by whom the world is fed 
and clothed, by whom cities are built and forests subdued, and deserts reclaimed. I 
desire to speak of those whose strong arms ceaselessly tugging at the oar, have impelled 
through aU time the bark of life; and briefly to ask of the Past how it has ti-eated them; 
of the Present, what is their actual condition ; of the Futm-e, what may be then- coming 
fate? — Bobert Dale Owen. 



It is a remarkable fact that the several successive streams of westward migration 
of the white Aryan race, from the primitive Paradise, in the neighborhood of the prime- 
val cities of Sogd and Balkh, in High Asia, long separated in times of migration, and for 
the most part distinct in the European areas finally occupied by them, and which, in the 
course of its gi-and march of twenty thousand years or more, has created nearly the 
whole of the civilization, arts, sciences and literatiu-e of this globe, building seats of 
fixed habitation and great cities, successively, in the rich valleys of the Ganges, the 
Euphi-ates, the Mle, the rivers and isles of Greece, the Tiber and the Po, the Danube, 
the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Seine and Thames, wandering children of the same great 
family, are now, in these latter times, brought together again in their descendants and 
representatives, Semitic, Pelasgic, Celtic, Teutonic, and Sclavonic, here in the newly 
discovered common land of promise, and are commingled (especiaUy in this great 
Valley of the Mississippi,) into one common brotherhood of race, language, law and 
liberty. — Nathaniel Holmes. 



WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED? 



Ladies and Gentlemen : 

Man is the govorning being upon the globe. He is the 
most perfect fruit on the tree of life. Through all time his aspiration 
has been -to achieve freedom and happiness. This desire of his nature 
was decreed in the constitution of his being by Him who fixed the stars 
in the heavens, and ordered life to come forth on the planets and suns of 
space. This aspiration is therefore divine, and it constantly stimulates 
the race to a higher plane of social, political, intellectual and moral ex- 
istence. It encourages men and women, in private and public life, to 
exercise all the faculties of each to obtain happiness in unfettered free- 
dom. This stimulator of human action, this passion for aspiration, this 
ambition of man, has impressed itself on the life-deeds of the world's 
people, through all the evolutions of individual and puljlic eflbrt. We 
are enabled by the agency of history and discover}^ to trace through the 
long and weary centuries of the past, its operation through art and 
science, through the various forms of religion that have grown out of 
the human mind, and through all the governments of the world. Out of 
this element of the mind of man, grew communities, societies, cities, 
states and nations ; they were, and are, the legitimate results of intellec- 
tual forces operating to attain freedom and happiness, individual or col- 
lectively, and, rightly directed by intellectual aid, this function of the 
mind will constantly impel man on to seek a wider range of freedom 
and happiness in the future. For the exercise of this function of the 
mind, legitimately interpreted, is nothing more than the natural growth 
of the human race, whether in individual, social or national life. As the 
individual has a growth, so has the race ; and as the family has a growth, 
so has the nation. The foundation and government of the family has 
been the same in all ages, because the principles that govern the family 
have always been organic and not conventional. Not so with nations. 
Their principles and modes of life have always been conventional and not 
organic, and for this cause social and industrial revolutions have swept 
over the earth, and empires have been drenched in blood to secure the 
mastery of irreconcilable creeds and conventional usages of peoples living 
under the rule of diiferent o-overnments. 



— 10 — 

To attain organic conditions in national life, has been the political 
struggle of the human race. Up through all the forms of governmental 
association achieved by humanity — through savageism, barbarism, despot- 
ism, limited monarchies, empires and kingdoms to transitional republi- 
canism — has the advanced body of all peoples struggled from age to age 
to attain organic libert3^ Coming up from an infantile state of human 
growth, the form and condition of governments advanced with the in- 
tellectual and moral gro^vth of mankind. In the order of advancement, 
the h)wer forms of government first appeared in Asia and Europe, and 
there they have had and do now hold exclusive sway on those continents. 
In the old world the thought of self-government has been little more 
than a dream of an enthusiast. Since history first began, centuries have 
rolled away, and nations have succeeded nations in the great struggles 
to eliminate a more perfect government for the people. The savage 
chieftjiin, the patriarch, the warrior and the king have each led their 
soldiers to battle, in defense of some real or imaginary right or supposed 
princi})lc of government, unmindful of the fact that each struggle, that 
every defeat and every victory, was an unconscious eifort of those who 
achieved it to attain a higher political life and a more advanced civilization. 
But in the long play of that unconscious drama, that has strewn Asia and 
Europe Avitli the ^vi'ecks of centuries, only God knew the result — the 
end to be attained. The passions and propensities of men had ruled in 
Europe and Asia, and the thirst for vengeance had been satiated in 
savageism. Barbarism had fulHlled its mission. Tyrants and kings had 
already exhausted their ambition on the thrones of the world, and by 
the dawning light of future centuries mankind began to see afar otf the 
people's advent. The world was already ripe for a new and more 
advanced form of government for the people. But nowhere in Europe 
or Asia could be found a land whereon to erect this new fabric of gov- 
eriiiiioiil about to ])c unfolded, and nowhere was a people to be found 
over which to ])uihl this new form of government, and into whose keep- 
ing it coukl be committed. But God alone had in charge the birth of 
this new child of the nations, soon to be born into existence — a revelation 
of a new and greater national life than had yet appeared upon the earth. 
In the councils of infinite wisdom He prepared the land on which this 
new nation was to be born, and sent out over the waters a greater than 
Noah, to discover the new laiul — 

" The rich and wise Cathay 
Columbus sought, faith-guided on his way." 



— 11 — 



THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 



The land was found — a continent of imperial grandeur, destined 
to be the home of an imperial Rej^ublic of States. God prepared a 
people to live in this new land. They sought its shores in due time, 
fleeing from persecution and tyranny, and in the fulness of time the new 
nation came forth revealed to the world, a shining fact ; and well might 
the evenino' and the mornino; of the old and the new as-e form another 
day of creation, and the sun again stand still in the heavens to behold 
such a nation born into existence. 

The oro-anization of the American Nation was an achievement in 
national government far in advance of all previous efibrts in the organ- 
ization of political societies. It was the nearest approach to a correct 
political system that has ever been made by men. The wisdom of man 
and God seemed to combine in the creation of a continent and a nation 
perfectly compatible with the highest uses of both. For here is the 
great continent of the world, and here the great Republican nation of 
futurity. To consider this nation and the welfare of the people who live 
under the Constitution, is the purpose for which I stand before you. I 
am here to propound and consider a question of momentous concern to 
the American people. I am here to ask, "What shall we do to be 
saved?" A similar question was asked by a sinning, erring one near 
eighteen centuries ago . It was propounded to one of the founders of the 
Christian religion. I am not here to consider salvation for sinners, but 
for this nation. And before entering upon the consideration of the sub- 
ject I wish it distinctly understood, that while I desire the well-being of 
all peoples, it is more important to save a nation than it is to save a sin- 
ner. Actuated by this conviction, I propose to consider some of the 
means of salvation essential to the existence of this nation and to the 
welfare of its people. But in so doing I do not wish to imply any undue 
alarm about the rapid approach of some social and political disaster of 
a national character, for I see none in the near future. I see no impend- 
ing social crisis, no coming conflict, no immediate organic change in 
national life, that cannot be averted by the proper use of the means of 
salvation. But I do see an inipending ^dtal necessity for a higher growth 
of individual and national life — a growth commensurate with the necessi- 
ties of a higher and more complex public life on this continent. I see 
many errors to correct, many reforms to make, many new questions to 
confront and solve — all means of salvation for this imperial Repul)lic of 
States. In the discussion, however, I do not intend to indulge those of 



— 12 — 

extreme temperaments, of calculatiug and cautious natures, nor the 
miser who pays taxes grudgingly, for these are constantly excited about 
every commercial, industrial, social and political incident that does not 
promise to bring to them a bountiful reward of luxury and wealth. Nor 
do I propose to take the side of the hyiDOcrite, the fault-finder and the 
self-appointed judge of right and wrong. My purpose is to look be- 
yond all incidental considerations touching individual, social and national 
life, and deal only with some of those things and conditions which now 
tend to disturb the organic structure of our social and political fabric, 
and, if possible, herald a better national life. 

The vastness of our continental domain, and the extended rule of 
the Constitution over the diverse climates under which our people now 
and henceforth are to live ; the all-pervading growth of population, of 
commerce, of industry and government — all these constantly beget new 
and unsolved pr{)l)lems and conditions essential to the public life. To 
consider these things is the duty before us, and to consider them in a 
liigher aspect shall be my endeavor. 

In the field of public discussion it is believed that he who takes hold 
of a great truth, whether of adoption or of his own discovery, and pro- 
claims it to the world and gives the earnest efibrts of his life to its 
promotion and achievement, is the one most worthy the honors of true 
fame. It was for doing this, for devoting a life to the promotion and 
achievement of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, that, 
as Chas. Sumner said, w^on for Abraham Lincoln the honors of true fame. 

It is my profound sentiment that America is the providential land of 
the world, and this conviction grows with increasing years. I do not 
say that this land and this nation is the especial work of some divinity of 
miraculous cliaracter ; Init I do believe with Shakspeare that there is a 
divinity tliat shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we may ; and I believe 
with another, that through the years and the centuries, through things 
and atoms, through evil and good, a great and beneficent tendency irre- 
sistibly streams. Upon this I stand in conducting my discussion. I believe 
tiiat all other governments of the earth have struggled through all time 
to ])roduce the American Nation, and that on this continent are to be 
solved the great prol)loins of the world, 

TllK AMERICAN SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT, AND ITS MAINTENANCE. 

Oui- fathers detined our government to be a Confederated Republic. 
We call it a Kepul)lic. It is strictly neither ; or in other words, the fabric 
or theory of our government may be defined either to be a Confederated 



— 18 — 

Republic or a Republic ; but the workings of the government are not far 
advanced in republicanism. We only have transitional republicanism, 
which consists in a declaration of principles without the practice. This 
nation is a child of a despotism, and a child always inherits some of the 
traits of the parents. We ever}[where have resolutions declaring life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness to be inalienable in men, and we have 
enactments designed to secure these natural rights and conditions to 
every citizen : but such are the transitional conditions of the principles 
and practice of our people, under the laws, that nowhere under the flag 
is the citizen's life, liberty and happiness beyond the reach of peril. 
These are grave facts and command the attention of all people, but they 
are facts which belong to a condition of grow^th in the order of national 
development. The struggle of the race, in every mode of life, has always 
been an effort to rise from a lower to a higher plane, and it was im- 
possible in the very nature of things for any part of the human race to 
skip a single link in the chain of national life, from savageism to organic 
liberty, which will succeed transitional republicanism on this continent. 

It has ))een declared b}^ the best writers on government that the 
most perfect form of government was that which approached nearest to 
nature , thus securing to man his natural rights . In the heat of the most 
memorable debate that ever took place in the United States Senate Mr. 
Webster exclaimed, "Would you re-enact the law of God?" Mr. Seward 
promptly replied, "You have no right to enact any other." 

The founders of the American system of government, standing at the 
highest point of national advancement in the world's history, and standing 
upon the world's land of promise with all history before them, and 
looking to the establishment of an imperial Republic of States over a vast 
continent, and educated by the experience of all former governments, 
with a combined wisdom which seemed akin to divinity, adopted the 
principle of " equal and exact justice to all, exclusive privileges to none." 
They made the one mighty step in advance of all previous forms of govern- 
ment and erected a new nation on this new land, the principles of which 
more nearly approached the laws of God than ever before attained by 
man. That form of government was adapted to the conditions of the peo- 
ple destined to live upon this continent, as demonstrated by the topo- 
graphical character of its wide domain. They created a constitution 
founded upon the natural rights of man, and thus gave birth to a new 
national life, destined to grow from transitional repu])licanism to organic 
liberty. Having inherited such a form of government, such a germ of 
national life, such a child of providence, with every promise of future 



— 14 — 

growth m greatness and perfection, an over-mastering duty, a self-impos- 
ing obligation, demands of lis its preservation and perpetuation. 

A nation founded on human rights should be based on the will ot 
the people, and if it is true that the will of the people must be founded 
upon intelligence for the purpose of giving inherent strength to the gov- 
ernment, which I admit, the great question still follows, in reference to 
the obligation of the people to maintain and perpetuate the form of gov- 
ernment organized b}' the tirst settlers upon the soil. 

Is it not time for the American people to consider whether those now 
living under the Constitution have the right to voluntarily overturn the 
iTovernment established by our fathers, on the plea of the rights that 
inhere in the self-governed ? I do not refer to the destruction of govern- 
ment by revolution, but by the voluntary action of the people. To be 
more explicit, I assume that though the people may possess all govern- 
mental power, in the name of representative government or natural rights, 
they have no right to overturn this or any other form of government, 
save by the right of revolution. Therefore I hold that this nation, 
though it be free only as God can create man, has the inherent right, 
superior to all men, to protect its own existence as the strong man has 
to protect his life. If this be true — and I challenge the world to disprove 
it — is it not full time to squarely meet a wide-spread conviction that 
demands a reconsideration or re-statement of the fundamental prin- 
ciples upon which free government stands ? If it be true that a represen- 
tative government is founded upon the consent of the people, does it 
follow that the consent of the people must constantly be reasserted in 
order to maintain the government? Would not such an admission be fatal 
to the maintenance of national life? In the very nature of things, if the 
l)u>)lic consent has to be constantly reaffirmed, we have no guarantee for 
the future of the nation. It is therefore high time that the American 
people abandon some of the loose notions about a government of the 
people. Even the use of the ballot does not imply a power in the hands 
of the people to overthrow the government. It does not imply the right 
to reaffirm self-government by the consent of the people. This nation is 
a legal compact ; our fathers based its principles on the natural rights of 
man. At any rate, so far as hnman wisdom could determine, they made it 
a government of the people, declaring it to be founded upo7i certain 
inalienable rights belonging to men. Those who lived upon the territory 
over which the Constitution was first extended accepted its provisions 
and its rule as the supreme law of the new nation. Those living in dif- 
ferent regions of country which the government of the thirteen original 



— 15 — 

States possessed, and the regions thereafter purchased, yielded to the 
supremacy of the Constitution and became integral parts of the Union 
and citizens under its provisions. They yielded to the supremacy of the 
fundamental law without reservation. 

All who now live under the rule of the Constitution are bound to 
obey, to support and aid in maintaining the government and the liberties 
of the people. This government is not a mere rope of sand ; it is a 
government of law, perpetual and enduring. Its ordinances were laid in 
the highest and divinest rights of men, and when the citizen as the 
individual accepted the Constitution as the shield of his rights, he entered 
into a legal compact for the maintenance of those rights, and neither one 
or more individuals has the right, under the plea of self-government, to 
reaffirm his obedience to the fundamental law. He has accepted the law 
for his rule of action, and he cannot abolish it. The dream of self- 
government without law is a phantasy of the mind. It is the highway- 
man's plea. It is the plea of the outlaw, for there is no liberty but the 
liberty of law. Let this be the axiom, the rock on which to hence- 
forth maintain the national fabric ; and if it be true that there is no 
liberty but the liberty of law, we have secured the foundation of this and 
future nations upon the unchangeable principles of right with the power 
to repress wrong. When our fathers laid the foundation of this govern- 
ment upon the axiom that there was no liberty but the lil)erty of law, 
they gave the nation the right of self-preservation, and this right belongs 
as much to nations as it does to individuals ; but the declaration of a 
right, or even the adherence to right conduct by one people, does not 
imply obedience to right by their successors. Men are prone to stray 
from the path of duty. Hence it was that Machiavelli said that, "accord- 
ing to the judgment of all authors who have written of civil government, 
and the examples of all history, it is necessary to whoever would estab- 
lish government, and prescribe laws for it, to presuppose all men natur- 
ally l)ad, and that they will show and exert that natural malignity as 
often as they have occasion to do it securely ; for, though it may possibly 
be concealed for some time, it is for some secret reason, which want of 
precedent and experience renders invisible, but time discovers it after- 
wards." This doctrine of the great Italian statesman is not without a 
truth for its foundation. The experience of all mankind has demonstrated 
that, however wise men may be who found nations, and however pure 
and patriotic the people may be who assume new forms of government, 
there will arise in after times those who, actuated by some scheme of 
ambition, or passion for power and for gain, will seek to defy the 



— 1(1 — 

law, and lead the people to deeds of violence and ruin. It is not the 
wisdom of the founders of governments, nor the correctness of the form 
of government, that make men good and obedient citizens. But the gov- 
ernment that admits of the free and unrestrained development of all the 
foculties of the mind and the freedom of the individual, within the sphere 
of duty, is justly commendable to all mankind as being more nearly the 
true government. It is beyond human wisdom to prevent the birth 
and being of the bad as Avell as the good. It has, therefore, been neces- 
sary, when organizing a government based upon the natural rights of 
man, whereby to promote perfect freedom, to also enact laws to restrain 
the bad, and the creation of self-government has not been an exception 
to this rule. Hamilton, the master nation-builder known to the human 
race, foresaw at the time of the organization of the American Union, the 
possibility of bad men coming up in the future, whose vain endeavor 
would be to lead the people astray, and thus foreseeing, labored to put 
sufficient strength into the national fabric to enable the administrators 
of the law to contend against the aggressions of wi-ong-doers. Each 
succeeding decade in our national life has furnished additional evidence 
of the wisdom of Hamilton. He contended, as all reasonable men must 
contend, that to give strength to a nation would not necessarily take any 
liberties from the people ; that a government of the people, a representa- 
tive government, could be made as strong as any other form of govern- 
ment mthout taking away any rights from the jDeople. 

If we assume as a fundamental axiom of government that there is 
no lil)erty but the liberty of law, it follows as a truth that the liberty of- 
a people depends upon the strength of a government. Men are often 
led astray in their reasoning, and confound license with liberty. There is 
a wide difference in the meaning of the two terms. License is the liberty 
of Avrong unrestricted by law. The lil)erty of law in a government of 
the people is for the protection of individual rights and the restraint of 
individual wrongs. License without the authority of law will soon lead 
to anarchy, while law to protect the good and restrain the bad will enable 
man to build for himself nations and cities, and create wealth and pro- 
mote intelligence. Which will you choose? Shall we maintain a free 
nation on this continent, as God designed it should be, or shall we sur- 
render it to lawless mobs? Those who have entered into the national 
compact have no more right, by banding together, to violate any part of 
the law than a highwayman has to take the life of his fellow-man. The 
law is as sacred to those who obey as life is to those who desire to live ; 
and he who comes forth to brave the huv and imperil life in violation of 



— 17 — 

rights, by the exercise of power that he does not rightly possess, must 
be regarded a criminal, and upon whom the penalty of the law ought to 
be executed. And if experience has recently taught us that anything is 
wanting in the fundamental law to give greater strength to our govern- 
ment, whereby to enable the officers of the law to restrain those who 
band together to trample down the rights and imperil life or the public 
welfare, let us rise to the dignity and necessity of the duty, and so change 
and amend the fundamental law as to give the strength required. It is 
the duty of the American people to maintain this government at all 
hazard ; and if it be true that national strength does not imperil the lib- 
erties of the people, any delay on the part of legislators to create the 
strength required will make them culpable to mankind all over this 
globe. For this nation has a higher mission to fulfil than the exercise of 
its power and beneficence on this continent. It has a mission to fulfil for 
humanity, I am, therefore, in favor of immediate action being taken on 
this question of national strength, and if need be I am for ingrafting on 
the fundamental law the political principles of Alexander Hamilton ; for 
with due regard for all other statesmen, the world affords no type, no 
example of a nation-builder equal to him. Talleyrand was right when 
he said that Hamilton was the o:reat man of America. Marshal all the 
great statesmen of the world together, and let the gifted of every land 
speak the praise of each one according to his merit, and then call Wash- 
ington and Lincoln down from heaven and ask who was the greatest 
statesman that ever went up from earth, and the answer from that higher 
life will be that Alexander Hamilton was the gi'eatest nation-builder that 
ever lived among men. Then speak his jiraise and breathe anew his prin- 
ciples into our national life, and the Eepublic will be as enduring as the 
continent itself. Hamilton grasped all the nations of the earth with one 
sweep of the mind and erected out of feebly-connected federal associa- 
. tiou one people — an American nation. No man has enunciated such 
■. simple and yet such sublime principles of self-government as he, and no 
I man has even approached the correctness of his principles since the 
I Greek Solon, His was an imperial mind, not autocratic nor despotic, 
I but all administrative and executive in its expression of political 
I power. "He spake as never man spake." He embodied in his 
i;j own organization principles of government inflexible in their application 
to political society, yet all-sufficient for the liberty of man. He was a 
child of the sea, born to rule the land. 

To ingraft this Hamiltonian spirit of power into the Constitution is 
one of the fundamental means of national salvation which is now de- 



i« 



_ 18 — 

manded of those charsred with makiuo; and administerino: the laws, and 
no time must be lost in the execution of this great duty. The recent 
so-called lal)or strikes, sweeping over the land, made good and conserva- 
tive men forget party prejudices and think anew and ask, what shall we 
do to be saved ? That sirocco of oroanized violence that moved over the 
country was not justitied in a land where the people are so young and so 
strong in recuperative energies, and where abound opportunities for all. 
But the lesson it taught must not be ignored. It must be thoughtfully 
considered and wisely confronted. The people must be taught that with 
rights and opportunities given to all, according to the measure and the 
capabilities of each, that whosoever falls upon this nation shall be bruised, 
and on whomsoever this nation falls he will be ground to atoms. Pos- 
sessed as we are of all the achievements of a century, and in the face of 
the bright promises of the future, let no man look with indifference upon 
the duty of the hour ; let no man say that danger is not in the brief dis- 
tance. We are yet young as a nation. The violent have imperilled the 
rights of citizens, and "if they do these things in a green tree, what 
shall they do in the dry ? " 

Population and the complex relations of society and civilization are 
constantly on the increase, and an}^ delay in making the ship of state 
sufficiently strong to ride triumphantly through every storm of violence 
hazards the perpetuity of our institutions. To save this nation is a 
higher duty than to serve the purposes of party. It is a duty this gen- 
eration owes to the generations yet to be, far up the ascending pathway 
along which will 

Nations step into rank, 

At time's loud bugle-sound. 

To accomplish these salutary ends, the following provisions of gov- 
ernment must be established and maintained : 

1. A provision for the restraint of evil-disposed persons, whether 
many or few ; 

2. A provision for the restraint of the law-makers under the Con- 
stitution ; and, 

3. A provision for the restraint of the officers of the law in whose 
charge the administration of the government is committed. 

These three provisions properly observed, no difficulty lies in the 
way of administering self-government for the good of all the people. 



— 19 — 

With these remarks on our system of self-government as an abstract 
political fobric, let us pass to the co-operative relations of government 
and civilization. 

Modern civilization has brought into the account of self-govern- 
ment new agencies that demand new laws for their regulation. The 
growth of the arts, of wealth and of population demand, under a repre- 
sentative form of government, regulations unknown to older forms of 
government. They create co-operative relations between government 
and civilization, and the prosperity and harmonious relations of each to 
the other, depending on the confidence, support and fidelity of the 
people, for the purjjoses of common good to all, beget new relations 
between the people and the general government, which require a -svise 
adjustment of each interest produced by art and wealth, as well as legal 
relations with the government itself. 

We need not go back to the origin of printing, to the birth of the 
telescope and the mariner's compass — inventions that opened the way 
for a broader and more intelligent conception of man's destin}' upon the 
globe, and his relation to civil government. We need only begin with 
the steam engine — that invention that exerts all the will-power of me- 
chanical ingenuity — that invention that has done for mechanics what the 
telegraph has done for human thought. Said the learned Dr. Lardner, 
in a lecture in Liverpool, on the power and usefulness of the steam 
engine : "I will eat the first steam engine that propels a vessel across the 
Atlantic ocean. ' ' Not more than six months passed away before an engine 
propelled a vessel across the Atlantic, and a new power was given to the 
world — a power tireless and almost omnipotent, a power that has abridged 
time and called men and women into new fields of activity. The steam 
eng-ine is the engine of civilization. It is not limited in its power and its 
duties to circumstances and conditions. It labors alike for men, states 
and nations. It is the servant of mind and does the work of intelligence 
and progress. Such is the wonderful power of the steam engine. The 
spinning jenny comes next as an agent of civilLzed men. By this inven- 
tion mankind was lifted from barbarism and from antique forms of tra- 
ditionary customs to the condition of a new life on the Western Hemis- 
phere. The spinning jenny gave to the world profit without labor; it 
clothed the people with new garments, and necessitated new principles 
of government. The steam engine and the spinning jenny linked human 
progress with mechanical invention and opened to mankind a new field 
of usefulness. 

It is said that the invention of the sewing machine, and its introduc- 



— 20 - 

tion in the city of New York, turned 30,000 women out of employment 
in that city. The sewing machine is a new agent which art has brought 
into use, and though small in its way, its use affected both the govern- 
ment and the civilization of the country. It sent poverty to the govern- 
ment to ask for labor, and it sent hunger to the rich man to ask for 
bread. But neither heeded the clamor. Both the government and the 
rich man left open the gates of crime, and humanity walked down to in- 
famy, and the government and civilization moved on hand in hand, pass- 
ing by on the other side, unmindful of the higher responsibility of each 
to the starving multitude. With the growth of invention began the 
gi'owth of wealth and the growth of corporations, and these two strong 
agents of wealth joined hands and grew side by side until they have be- 
come a vast power all over the land. They have widened the field of 
useful toil and given labor to thousands of people, yes, millions of men 
and women, and yet by their growth they have imposed new functions of 
government, the exercise of which requires new laws. 

Chief among modern inventions, and the greatest one the arts have 
given to the world, is the railway. This new facility of commerce and 
travel not only transcends the ox, the mule, the horse and the steamboat 
in speed and usefulness, but it has also produced untold wealth in every 
field of its activity. As an agent of civilization there is nothing that 
exerts a power so demonstrative. The iron road is the road of progress, 
and the locomotive everywhere heralds a civilization mightier than of 
yore. , 

But a few years ago the locomotive started on the iron road to the 
Orient. As it entered lands where for century on century pagan super- 
stitions had ruled mankind, it heralded a new civilization, and the world 
saw a new light shining from the eye of science. 

The railway has grown to be a potential element in our civilization, 
a mighty power throughout the country, and its value is incalculable 
to the commerce and civilization of the people. And yet in the very 
houi- when it is executing the labor of the people, many of those whose 
interests depend most upon its use, look upon the railway as an inno- 
vator, a usurper of individual rights, and the robber of the wages of 
honest toil. Wide-spread as this conviction may be, I hold that it is 
founded upon ignorance and is proclaimed by demagogues, I care not 
what may l^e tlieir rank or what station they fill. 

The telegraph may also be mentioned as an invention that exercises 
a great influence, both upon civilization and government. On the morning 
the news reached Washington City of the discovery and invention of the 



— 21 — 

telegraph, a gentleman asked John C. Calhoun what he thought of it. Mr. 
Calhoun answered that some day it will become one of the greatest agen- 
cies of despotism in this country. I shall not undertake to say how far 
Mr. Calhoun was right, but the telegraph is certainly a great power, and 
one that has gathered to itself great wealth, and its influence and use 
have provoked much discussion. Viewed in any light, the telegraph 
exerts a sreat influence all over the land— an influence that reaches the 
government itself. 

It is true that inventions and industries so wide-spread over the 
country, and bringing into recognition so much capital and labor as 
the railways and telegraphs have, do, in the very nature of things, create 
and will create new relations between the general government and the 
civilization of the people— relations more vital in their character under 
our form of self-government. Personal and public interests of unusual 
magnitude are centered in the great railways of the country, and they 
have become vital centres of wealth and agents of unusual power. And 
so rapid has been the growth of the railway system of the country that 
the nation now has an unconscious giant of commerce and industry to 
confront. And how to meet this giant of Briarean arms is a question of 
momentous concern to the people of this country. Not that this ques- 
tion is difficult to meet and solve, but that it must be met right. As 
an invention the railway is a promoter of civilization. No man can 
measure its value and usefulness, and on account of the magnitude of 
the j-ailway system of the country it possesses a power which, if not 
rightly controlled, cannot fail to be a source of great injury to the people 
and the government. Power everywhere, whether in the atom or the 
planet, must be exerted for the right use of the thing possessing it. The 
railway, abstractly considered, has no power in itself, but when wielded 
by the agency of mind, becomes a new element in the fiiljric of society 
and government — an element so important in its use and relations as to 
command recognition by the government, both defensive and oflensive. 
In other words, so great an interest and so great a power as the railway 
brings to our civilization must, of necessity, become a matter of national 
concern. The extended lines of railway, constructed and operated 
beyond State lines, gives them a national character, and places the power 
to restrain their undue use, or to defend their rights, beyond the juris- 
diction of State governments. As a highway for travel and traffic, and 
for the transportation of soldiers and mails, the railway possesses the 
same inter-state character that belongs to rivers, and therefore the 
nation has the same jurisdiction to restrain and control the use of the 



— 22 — 

railway, within such limits as may seem best for the public good. On 
the other hand, the railway, with all the wealth and improvements belong- 
ing to it, and the exercise of its legitimate and lawful functions, must be 
protected by the general government from all assaults of whatever char- 
acter, or from whatever sources. 

The government must, in defence ^f its oMm existence, restrain every 
attempt by one or more persons to interfere with the rights or interests 
of any part of the communit}^ Individuals, nations and the affairs of 
nations must be governed by law, and the very moment disobedience ia 
permitted to invade the rights of the people in any locality, under the 
constitution, the evil resulting therefrom is shared by the whole people. 
The bodj' politic is analogous to the human body, and the disease or the 
injury that invades any part of the system or extremity of the man can 
not be ignored by the healthy parts. 

The laws which govern and control the human beino; are inflexible 
in their operation, yet simple and all-sustaining; so, too, must be the 
laws that govern and control nations if those charged with making and 
administering the laws, desire a free and prosperous people. No matter 
how intiexible the national laws are that govern and control the human 
being, where they are rightly obeyed, men and women have more 
freedom in the activities of life and more mental enjoyment than when a 
single law is disobeved. In fact, the disobedience of organic laws brings 
slavery, disease and decrepitude, and a warring of the members of the 
individual. If this be true, it brings us again to re-aifirm our axiomatic 
propositions that there is no liberty but the liberty of law, and that 
license without the authority of law leads to anarchy. Then in vain do 
men talk of oppressive laws under a strong and self-adjusting constitu- 
tion, A self-government is the strongest form of government in the 
world. ^V^lcn rightly adjusted to the wants and necessities of the people, 
each citizen becomes an integral part of the national life, a function of 
mental and moral power. Not so in those nations where but few persons 
govern. With them the people are held together by ties of blood, lan- 
guage, and a conviction of nationality. 

NATIONAL CHARACTER IS THE OUTGROWTH OF INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER. 

Again, a self-government derives much of its strength from the 
obedience of the people to the law, for obedience founded on a conviction 
of sovereignty in the individual gives strength. On the other hand, the 
weakness of a nation is attributable, in the main, to a failure of the 
people to obey the laws ; or in other words, nations are enfeebled by 



23 



disobedience to law. An obedient people are always a united people ; 
a disobedient people are a disunited people. A united people are a 
strong people, made so by discipline and a profound conviction in favor 
of the government under which they live. 

But we have more to consider than the simple question of a correctly 
organized government and an obedient and a united people. Govern- 
ments, like individuals, are prone to err. They are subject to the same 
tendencies of good and e\\\ that men are ; and the great nation and the 
good nation is always born of the great and good people. As the people 
are, so is the nation ; and if we go back in the discussion to ask what shall 
we do to save the nation, the answer will be found in the answer to the ques- 
tion, what shall the people do to be saved? for as the people are, so is the 
nation. Therefore, the individual is not only a political factor in the 
national life, but also a moral and intellectual power. And if the people 
want an honest administration of government, if they want wise legisla- 
tors, they must themselves be honest and wise. If we desire the nation 
to be founded on %drtue and high purposes, the people must be virtuous 
and liigh in their bearing. This doctrine was declared by the Apostle to 
be ordained ot Heaven. He told the Corinthians to "be not deceived; 
God is not mocked ; whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." 
The same doctrine was advocated by ^schines in his speech in opposition 
to Athens o-rantino; Demosthenes a crown. yEschmes told the Athenians 
that in granting crowns they judged themselves, and were forming the 
character of their children. Said he: "Most of all, fellow-citizens, if 
your sons ask whose example they shall imitate, what will you say? For 
you know well it is not music, nor the gjonnasium, nor the schools, that 
mould young men ; it is much more the proclamations, the public exam- 
ple. If you take one whose life has no high purpose, everybody who 
sees it is corrupted. Beware, therefore, Athenians, remembering pos- 
terity will rejudge your judgment, and that the character of a city is 
determined hy the character of the men it crowns." Shall we not heed 
the teachings of this Athenian orator and the Apostle ? If we wish to 
have a true nation we must have a true people, actuated by a deep-rooted 
conviction that "righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to 
any people." 

Every man and woman owes it to the nation to live a true and up- 
right life, a life that mil contribute strength and character in private and 
public places. This I hold to be the most important means of national 
salvation. 

As the sea-bird seeks the rock as a refuge from the tempest and the 



— 24: — 

storm, as the Christian seeks Jesus as a refu<^e from hoaven-oftending 
sins, so should the true man and woman, inspired with patriotism, cling 
to the nation for hope and happiness, gi^'ing even as they desire to receive. 

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

But I leave this semi-social thought, and pass on to consider other 
means of national salvation. The present state of public afiairs demands 
serious consideration. "While it is true the nation is only in its infancy, 
and rapidlv growing up to mature life, it is the duty of those charged 
with making and administering the laws to discharge their duties for the 
best interests of the people, and in such a manner as will give character 
and greatness to the nation. 

The late civil conflict to eliminate slavery from our country was 
succeeded by the usual social and political evils, excesses and vices, that 
result from all wars, internecine and foreign. Corruption in office, in- 
comi)etenoy in place has been one of the consequences, and profligacy 
and extravagance in every occupation of life and public duty have suc- 
ceeded the late struggle to destroy slavery. The first effort of politicians 
and statesmen was to restore national unity and national integrity and 
spread over the land prosperity in every field of honest toil. How far 
success has been achieved in the accomplishment of these things is still 
undetermined. Twelve years have passed away since Lee surrendered 
at Appomattox Court House, and yet we hoar of a "solid South" and a 
"solid North." There has been a constant contest for party principle, 
based on bitter and unnatural antagonisms — a spirit of hatred and 
revenge. Is it not time that the people were made prosperous by the 
inspiration of a new liberty, and reinvigorated by the spirit of an all- 
embracing national unity? But instead of such a consummation we still 
hoar the babbling of politicians and the l)itter words of partisans. In- 
trigue pervades cvorv condition of official life, regardless of party prin- 
ciples or p:u-ty power. The people have grown sick over the politicians' 
chiinor about civil service reform. For almost a decade this pretence of 
reform lias been heralded over the country as a panacea for theft and incom- 
petency in official life. The pretence for such a reform had its origin in a 
few men who sought to establish a kind of American kid-glove aristoc- 
racy, and at best it was intended for clorks below the age of twenty 
years, and not for party slaves Avho have grown corrupt in their service. 
There never was anything in civil service reform, and there never can be 
anything in it as presented by its advocates. The American people are 
a democratic people ; in official life they can only recognize distinctions 



— 25 — 

made by competency and fidelity. The capable and qualified man is the 
true official reformer. He is the man for the place, and if party usages 
demand official changes, those in office have only to substitute men of 
equal qualifications. This is the only reform the American people 
demand for official life. 

THE FINANCIAL QUESTION ; AN AMERICAN SYSTEM OF COMMERCE. 

Let us now pass to financial reform. To meet the financial exigen- 
cies precipitated by the rebellion, the government was compelled to use 
its credit to the utmost extent. It issued currency for the people, and 
bonds for home and foreign markets. It created a cancer of an incur- 
able debt, if perpetuated under tlie law upon which it is founded. 

Let us confront the financial problem of the country, for this is 
the great problem that afi'ects the interests and prosperity of the people. 
To consider this question properly I desire to state : First, that the finan- 
cial affiiirs of every nation are founded upon principles of a local and 
distinctive national -character and necessity. Second, that every nation 
has the same right to organize its own system of finance without reference 
to other nations, as it has to enact laws and to fix the qualification of 
citizenship. I further hold that it is a fundamental principle upon which 
the financial afiairs of every nation are based, that debt and credit must 
be founded upon the resources, labor and skill of the people of a country — 
conditions peculiarly local and special. I further hold that a nation has 
the right to fix a standard, not of value, but of payment, and to make it 
out of such material as it may select itself, and that, too, without any 
reference to the financial affiiirs of any other nation. I further hold that 
money in essence is that which the law makes money. It is a creature 
of law, designed for a facility in the transaction of business. There has 
been as much foolish discussion about what money is as there has been 
about the faljled tempter of the human race. I therefore repeat again, 
that money is in essence that which the law makes money. Nothing else 
is money, and nothing else can be money. We hear men speak al)Out 
money being a measure of value. I do not so understand it. Money, 
technically speaking, is neither a measure nor weight of value, but a 
denomination, a token of power and standard of payment. It is made of 
fractional denominations and is based upon numbers and not on weights 
and measures or the value of the material of which it is composed ; and 
when we consider the definition of money, with the fact that it only 
represents value by means of cents, dimes and dollars, how is it possible 
to clothe it with any other worth than that which the law gives it? 



— 26 — 

Then if it is a creature of law, why does not a nation have the same right 
to make its own money as it has to enact its own laws? Secretary 
Sherman said a man was a fool who said a dollar could be made of 
paper. This certainly is a very low exi^ression for a man to make to 
more than 40,000,000 people, most of whom believe to the contrary, and 
whose industries are prostrated by the stupidity and anti- American policy 
of the Secretary of the United States Treasury. Even gold is not money 
unless the law makes it money. If it has an intrinsic value because of 
its scarcity, it can only be sold by weight, as iron and brass are sold. It 
has no other market value until the power of the law touches it and gives 
it a money value. 

Now, if it be true that a nation has the right to make its own money — 
and I challenge human reason and the honesty of mankind to controvert 
it — then are not those charged with making the laws bound by every obli- 
gation that legislators can possibly be under, to the people, to organize 
such a system of linance and make such money as the needs of the coun- 
try demand, and such as will give labor and prosperity to the people? 

As to the material out of which to make money, there ought not to 
be a question of dispute, any more than there is about the question how 
to make bread. Nobody can object to the government making money out 
of gold or silver. But the law-makers and the administrators of the laws 
of this government have no more right to say that the sovereignty of the 
law cannot make a paper dollar represent one hundred cents as well as 
the gold or silver dollar, than they have to say that a yard-stick made of 
pine wood does not contain tliirty-six inches, as well as if made of box- 
wood, gold or silver. The principle is precisely the same. Mathemati- 
cal science and a conventionality has fixed thirty-six inches for one yard, 
and one hundred cents for one dollar ; but mathematical science does not 
say what kind of material shall represent the inches and the cents. These 
are matters for economy and the public interests to determine. Now as 
to what material our American money should be made of is purely a ques- 
tion of pu])lic interest and convenience. 

But the gold-monger says, if you make money of paper, there is 
danger of getting too much of it. In answer, I would first ask if nature 
has been profligate in supplying too much air and too much water for 
man's use, and if there is a superabundance, is anybody harmed by it? 
I suspect tliat if man had ])een commissioned from on high to make air 
and water, his selfishness would have limited the quantity and the amount, 
so tliat the ricli couhl have an abundance and the poor scarcely enough 
to breathe and drink. But the good Father above spread air and water 



— 27 — 

around the earth, on hill-tops and in pastures, for the free use of alL 
Who ever heard of too much food in a country injuring the interests of 
the people, and how can a wise and liberal supply of money injure the 
business interests of the people or the country? When there is more 
food the poor people get more to eat, and when there is more money the 
poor people get more of it. Plenty of money does not injure a house, 
it don't harm a railway nor a printing office. 

I sometimes think in moments of reflection, when I contemplate the 
present and the future of America, that a God ought to come from heaven 
to teach the people and administer the government. We have a prece- 
dent in Italian literature. A God abandoned heaven to live in Italy, 
Apollo fled from Olympus to dwell in Aussonia. Here we have a vast 
continental nation, and it does really seem that there is no public man 
bold enough to rise above the demagogueism of the politician, and declare 
the destiny of the nation and prescribe laws for the better government of 
the people. 

Planting myself upon the fundamental fact that money in essence is 
that which the law makes money, I hold that it is the bounden duty of 
the American nation to so legislate as to relieve the American people of 
the weight of the national debt. A debt so enormous, put upon a people 
so young, and held there by a government that does so little to relieve 
the burdens of taxation, engenders discontent and distrust throughout the 
land. A system of American finance ought to be organized for this 
nation. It must be a system founded upon the necessities and interests 
of the American people. It must be a system of finance that will give 
to the people a real genuine American money, without any reference to 
whether it is adapted to the speculative uses of any nation of Europe. 

I would make American money of paper and impress upon it the 
sovereign power of the nation. Metal money made of gold is a heathen 
relic — a calf that was once worshipped by idolaters . Upon the white wings 
of paper the thoughts of the human race, of the greatest and best of 
mankind, are carried and heralded to every land. The world can live 
without gold, but blot paper from the earth and you can only do one 
thing worse,' and that is to blow out the light of the sun. Think for one 
moment what a calamity it would be to blot paper from the earth. Con- 
sider such an event for one moment, and I challenge the world to prove 
that there is more intrinsic value in gold than in paper. Think what a 
meaning there is in the fact that the world can do without gold, but it 
cannot do without paper. Think of it, you heathen devotees, as you stand 
with your thoughts and convictions away back of the thirteenth century, 



— 28 — 

at the opening of which a new light began to dawn from the West upon 
the world. Think of it, and then say shall America's progress be 
clogged by your devotion to gold, when paper is the white-winged 
evangel of the nineteenth century? 

We want a money that will turn the wheels of toil, that will give 
life to industry and activity to commerce — a money that will inspire 
confidence and devotion in the people for the government under which 
they live. 

By one of the terms of this American system, let it be provided that 
at least $100,000,000 worth of the bonds be called in annually and paid 
off with our American money. Give Europe our money and her people 
will invest in this country in building railways and in developing mines, 
and other needed improvements. Let this money be the money of the 
nation, and, backed by the will and demands of the people, the people 
will vote for such a money ; it will buy their bread and meat, their cloth- 
ing, and pay taxes, and in defence of such a money will the people fight. 

How simple, and yet how great, would such a financial system be ! 
Give to the country an American system of finance, and you at once give 
the nation a new standing among the governments of the world. O how 
disgraceful is the sad spectacle to-day ! Here we have a continental na- 
tion, larger in its availaljle territorial domain than any nation on the earth. 
It has more natural resources, more navigable advantages, and more 
intelligence among its people than can be found elsewhere on the globe. 
It is the land of Washington, Franklin, Webster, Calhoun, Clay, Benton 
and Lincoln, and yet through misjudged legislation, it stands before the 
courts of tlic world as a third-rate power. Its diplomatic ofiicials are 
disgraced in every land, by the poverty-stricken compensation paid for 
their services. Its financial policy has chained it to Europe. Metal 
money means Europe, the money power of the world, and America on 
her knees to Europe. Europe owns and directs Wall street, and Wall 
street controls the Washington government, and the Washington govern- 
ment has the Valley of the Mississippi bound hand and foot. And yet in 
the very face of these things, when the hind is full of bread, thousands 
go hungry, because there is no labor whereby to earn bread. The 
Secretary of the Treasury tells the people tnat the government has 
nothing to do with the hard times. What think ye of such a declaration? 
He further adds, that the government is not responsible for good or 
bad crops. In answer, I have to say that hard or prosperous times are 
not always incident to good or bad crops. 

Alexander Hamilton, whom Secretary Sherman has succeeded 



— 29 



in office, held quite a different opinion on the subject of the government dif- 
fusing prosperity among tlie people. He entered the Treasury office when 
the new States were prostrated in poverty and weakness, without skill and 
without inventions. By the aid of the government he soon lifted the 
people of the new States to prosperity and power ; so, too, can this admin- 
istration do if it had a man equal to Alexander Hamilton for Secretary 
of the Treasury. One of the great needs of the nation is a governmental 
policy adapted to the wants of America and her theory of government, 
and not for the interest of Europe. All our legislation should be so 
shaped, to make this nation great, and build it up as the American nation. 
But sad enough, the whole financial policy of the Washington govern- 
ment has been for ten years in favor of Europe. The hope of the world 
is in America, and it is for American statesmen to legislate for America 
and not for Europe. An examination of the map of the world demon- 
strates that there are but two nations on the globe, north of the equator, 
which, if compelled to live and confine their commerce to their own ter- 
ritory, could exist one year without being reduced to anarchy ; these two 
nations are America and China. There is not a nation on the continent 
of Europe that possesses within itself the resources and recuperative 
energies to live alone. Hence the nations of Europe must of necessity 
draw their life-blood from other people in other lands, and the efforts of 
American statesmen are to contribute to Europe instead of building up 
America. 

THE REMOVAL OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL, AND WHERE TO LOCATE IT. 

The next step in the discussion in favor of national salvation is the 
adjustment of the government to the topographical conditions of the 
continent of North America. As there is a law governing the right ad- 
justment of the paternal home, and the public improvements to the 
domestic habitation, so too is there a law governing the right adjustment 
of the home of the government, from which will emanate the laws of the 
country, according to the topogi^aphical character of the continent. 

He who builds a palace or a cottage must lay the foundation accord- 
ing to the ground on which he decides to build. He adjusts all the 
structure according to the surroundings and according to the necessities 
of the improvement ; so, too, must be the rules observed in establishing 
the fabric of government on the territory where it is designed to exist. 
When civilization clothes the country with population and wealth, the 
log cabin erected in the mlderness must give place to the palace designed 
for the permanent abode of the domestic household. 



— 30 — 

If we desire the perpetuity of this nation we must consider the 
topographical character of the countrj^ over which the Constitution now 
and henceforth is designed to extend, and re-locate the capital of the 
nation — the home of the govermnent — in accordance with the topogra- 
phical character of the whole country and in respect to the future growth 
of population and power. When the government consisted of the thir- 
teen original States, and six of them not as large as the State of Missouri, 
the present seat of government was selected in accordance with the 
dictates of wisdom. Our fathers legislated for themselves according to 
their best judgment, and in harmony with the topographical character of 
the thirteen States of the then Federal Government. Near one century 
has passed away since the capital was located at its present place, and 
the nation now extends almost over a vast, wide continent. It has almost 
trebled in the number of its States, and has almost twelve times the 
population. But more than all those, the topographical character of the 
country, over which the Constitution now extends, denumds a re-location 
of the national capital, a re-adjustment of the government to the conti- 
nent over which the national fabric extends. Politicians, demagogues 
and fools may laugh at the thought of removing the capital to the Valley 
of the Mississippi, where it vnll be safe against both foreign and domestic 
foes, and from whence the laws Avill reach with equal vigor to every ex- 
tremity of the country. He Avho ignores the idea that there is nothing 
in the adjustment of a self-government to the topographical character of 
the country over which it extends, denies the existence of constitutional 
conditions that regulate things with each other ; and he who denies that 
the re-location of the national capital at some central and approj)riate 
place in the Valley of the Mississippi is not of vital concern to the per- 
petuity of this nation, has given but little thought to the under-life prin- 
ciples upon which this nation is to stand and endure. 

Said Mr. Machson : "An equal attention to the rights of the com- 
munity is the basis of republics. If we consider, sir, the effects of 
legislative power on the aggregate community, we must feel equal in- 
ducements to look for the centre in order to find the present seat of ' 
govermnent. Those Avho are most adjacent to the seat of legislation 
will always possess advantages oA^er others. An earlier knowledge of the 
laws, a greater influence in enacting them, and a thousand other circum- 
stances, will give a superiority to those who are thus situated. If we 
consider the influence of the government in its executive department, 
there is no less reason to conclude that it ought to be placed in the centre 
of the Union. It ou^ht to be in a situation to command information 



— 31 — 

from every part of the Union, to watch every conjecture, to seize every 
circumstance that can be improved. The executive eye ought to be 
placed where it can best see the dangers which threaten, and the execu- 
tive arm whence it may be extended most effectually to the protection of 
every part. In the judiciary department, if it is not equally necessary, 
it is highly important that the government should be equally accessible 
to all." 

The friends of capital removal want no better argument than was 
made by Mr. Madison. But of course there is a class of men who are 
very deep in shallow matters and very shallow in deep matters, who say 
that telegraphs and railways render communication so easy and universal 
that it does not matter where the capital is located. Now I admit the 
usefulness of both these agencies, but whatever argument there is in 
them applies much better to almost any city of any considerable size in 
the Valley of the Mississippi than it does to Washington City. I under- 
take to say that there is not a sane man beneath the shining sun that can 
make a sensible argument in favor of the capital of this nation remaining 
at Washington. In reference to where the capital ought to be re-located, 
it was agreed among the friends of capital removal, eight years ago, that 
no locality should be presented until official steps were taken for removal. 
I have until the present adhered to that agreement, but now and hence- 
forth I propose to advocate a locality for the future capital of the United 
States, and that locality comprises a district ten or twenty miles square, 
covering the region of country where the great rivers of this continent unite 
and blend their waters together ; where the Illinois, the Mississippi and 
Missouri rivers join together to send their united waters to the sea. At that 
place centres more than 20,000 miles of available navigable waters, and 
near by centres the largest railway system on the continent. That locality 
is the pelvic region in tlie physical organization of this continent ; it is the 
golden mean .where the zones of the North and the South meet. It com- 
bines the greatest physical power on the globe, and the navigable rivers that 
meet there form a stronger bond of national unity than the Constitution 
itself. The best water in the world flows from the Rocky Mountains 
through the Missouri. Material for food, clothing and building purposes 
can there be gathered in greater abundance and cheaper than at any 
other point on the continent. And there Missouri and Illinois can unite 
and give a home to the government of this imperial Republic of States— 
a capital worthy the nation, the symbol of whose power it is. 

"The Valley of the Mississippi is the chosen seat of population and 
power on this continent." It is the only section of the country that can 



— 32 — . 

stand alone. The Atlantic States can never secede for want of food, nor 
the Pacific States for want of the metals. Powerfnl enough in numbers 
to make the laws of the Republic, the people of the Valley will also be 
powerful enough to enforce them. 

This valley has already demonstrated its power in the late rebellion. 
When the struggle opened, Gen. Scott commanded the army ; Gen. Dix, 
of New York, commanded that department ; Gen. Butler, of Massachu- 
setts, commanded in Baltimore ; Gen. McClellan, of New York, com- 
manded the department of Ohio, and Gen. Lyon, of Connecticut, the 
department of Missouri — all Eastern men. When the war closed. Gen. 
Grant, of Illinois, was at the head of the army ; Gen. Sherman, of Mis- 
souri, had brought his Western army into North Carolina ; Gen, Thomas, 
of Ohio, had command in Tennessee, and Gen. Sheridan, of Ohio, was 
Grant's favorite subordinate in the army before Richmond — all Western 
men. 

No foreign invader can ever penetrate the Valley of the Mississipj)i. 
On the eastward the Atlantic States form an impregnable fortification to 
resist any invader, while the Alleghany mountains shut in the valley 
from attack. On the westward the Pacific States would resist an invader, 
and the Sierras and plains arrest his march. On the north, regions im- 
passable in summer by reason of water, and in winter by reason of snows, 
shut in the valley from approach ; while from the Gulf coast, as expe- 
rience in the war of 1812 and in the recent civil war abundantly proved, 
there is no pathway northward which could not easily be held against 
any invading force. Then defended on all sides with ample water facili- 
ties, reaching throughout the whole interior, for the transportation of 
forces toward any threatened point, the people of the valley are more 
secure from an invasion than those of any nation on earth. 

These things being true, I now affirm that it is the bounden duty 
of those charj^ed with makini>: and administerino; the laws to re-locate the 
home of the government, the capital of the nation, in the Valley of the 
Mississippi, without delay. Until this is done, unnatural national 
trouliles will continue to disturb the body politic, and men will continue 
to talk of a solid North and a solid South, and elements of discord will 
pervade the people of the nation because of the unnatural adjustment of 
the government to the topographical character of the country. 

But the capital removed to the Valley States, they will cement around 
it, and the nation will throb with a new life, and perfect peace and perfect 
union will henceforth be constant and enduriuir. 

If the American people hesitate to take this step, they will do so with 



— 33 — I 

peril to the general government, for no power in the world can prevent 
the capital from being removed west. This is a government of majori- 
ties, and the majority will not go forever over the Alleghanies to make 
laws to govern themselves, nor will the people of the Valley of the Mis- 
sissippi submit to a government that strives to promote the interests of 
the European capitalists to the detriment of their own honor, their in- 
dustry, and the humiliation of their government. 

UNJUST DISCEIMINATIONS BY THE NATIONAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS 
AGAINST ST. LOUIS AND THE SOUTH-WEST. 

But recently the Washington Bureau of Statistics issued a volume 
on the internal commerce of the country, and one would suppose that 
the government of the United States would not issue a partial work in 
reference to the affairs of its o^vn people. But the compiler of that 
volume, although compelled to present the great preponderance of in- 
ternal over external commerce, so arranged the whole drift of the book 
as to show the currents of trade running to the Atlantic seaboard, and 
nearly every map in it discriminates against St. Louis and the South- 
west. In mapping the trunk railways belonging to the .St. Louis system, 
several lines are left off of the map entirely. The commercial chan- 
nels of the cities of the West whose interests are regarded as being more 
allied to the Atlantic seaboard are fully presented. But this is not all. 
Secretary Sherman, in his speech in Ohio, also took an opportunity to 
make a tl^rust at Western commerce. I undertake to say that the man- 
ner in which he presented the tonnage of the three great trunk railways 
leading to the Atlantic seal)oard is folse. In estimating the tonnage on 
either of those three great lines of road, he forgets that he is estimating 
freight all the way from San Francisco, Galveston, New Orleans, the 
Yellowstone and every part of the West, the tonnage of which freight 
has already been counted several times on connecting lines of road. On 
the other hand, the Mississippi and its tributaries float annually a com- 
merce valued at $200,000,000, and they are more valuable as commer- 
cial thoroughfares than all the railroads in the country ; and say what 
men will, the people of the Mississippi Valley will henceforth go out at 
the Gulf of Mexico with their surplus commerce designed for the 
markets of the world. 

The genius of Capt. Eads, our own citizen of the valley, has con- 
trived one of the important means to achieve this destiny in harmony 
with nature herself, and do what the world may, or what nations will, 
there is but one destiny for the people of this grand valley. 



— 34 



THE STRIKES. 



1 now pa>*s to consider some of the questions of the future as they 
relate to what has gone before, as means of national salvation. 

America is the land of the future. Here are to be solved all the 
great questions of government and civilization. It therefore becomes the 
American statesmen to go beyond the lessons of to-day, and think wisely 
on the questions of the future. The one great thought of the American 
citizen should be how to build upon this continent an imperial Republic 
of States, over-arched by a constitution that rules from ocean to ocean 
•and from zone to zone — a constitution that derives its efficacy and its 
power from "we, the people of the United States." 

The lirst lesson that presents itself for consideration is derived from 
the late so-called "labor strikes." Last July a civilized sirocco swept 
over the land from the Atlantic ocean to the Mississippi river. The 
American people were confronted, in almost a day, with a sweeping 
social tornado that seemed to threaten ruin both to civilization and gov- 
ernment, and men everywhere were asking, "what shall we do to be 
saved?" Bitter partisans forgot their political creed, and men met each 
other face to face and inquired if there was not something in the teach- 
ings of the founders of the nation, irrespective of party, still wanting to 
make our government strong and enduring. The authority of the law 
was defied, human life was imperiled, and the wealth of generations 
threatened by a lawless and misguided people. It was called a labor 
strike, and many men who ought to have been wiser shared in the insanity 
of the hour. 

Since the smoke of the battle has cleared away and reason has a 
hearing, I undertake to say that the late strikes did not have their origin 
in a want of bread, nor in a want of higher wages. These assumptions 
were only pretexts for a rupture. If we go deep in the condition of 
things we find that in the physical world earthquakes and storms are 
constantly taking place, the causes of which do not have their origin in 
the earth where the concussion is, nor in the wind out of which the storm 
is made. The earth and the wind are the means, but not the cause, of 
the shock and the storm. The cause lies back of both ; so, too, in the 
social world, where mind operates upon physical conditions. Such is the 
nature of man, that most of the social disorders have their origin in a 
pretext. Those founded on a principle, or having their origin in a prin- 
ciple, never accomplish that for which it is claimed they are designed. 
A few years ago a wide-spread agitation swept over the country in the 



— 35 — 

name, and ostensibly in favor of, woman suffrage. I undertake to say 
the cause that produced that agitation did not have its origin in the con- 
stitution of human nature, for the purpose of establishing woman suffrap-e. 
It grew out of an under-life social principle, designed to accomplish a 
great social change in the organic condition of human society, far different 
from woman suffrasfe. 

But rising nearer to the surface of human action, it is not unusual 
for one man, or many men, to take advantage of a pretext to precipitate 
an attack upon some persons or corporations, with the pretence of 
redressing some imaginary wrong. The cause of the late strikes had its 
origin far back, and is the result of a growing falsehood. It is a well 
ascertained fact that the wages of railway engineers and other railway 
employees are at least 30 to 40 per cent, higher since the war than before 
it, and that the cost of living is only six to eight per cent, higher than 
before the war. Railway engineers were paid on the Illinois Central 
Railway $2.70 per day up to January 1st, 1862. Wages were then raised 
to $3.30, and continued at that rate through the war. They now run 
from $3.75 to $4 per day. 

In the face of such facts, what earthly reason was there for a strike? 
There was none. The war brought upon the country extravagance and 
vice, and with the spread of vice, labor in many fields of toil contracted, 
while all men's wants increased ; unbalanced relations grew up between 
capital and labor, and vice and extravagance demanded more money to 
satisfy their wants. There is scarcely a man in the land who does not 
spend more in extravagance than he did before the war, and the want of 
money to meet this extravagance crates a pretext for those who are 
banded together, and a strike is precipitated in the name of the want for 
bread. 

No want for bread has yet occurred in this land of America. 
The world has no evidence that the American people have ever 
wanted for bread, and it is a slander on America for any man to say 
that her people have wanted for bread since Columbus came to her 
shores. In this discussion I desire to bring to my aid the support 
of the Rev. Richard Coldley, of Flint, Michigan, whose words are 
as true as steel and as bright as gold. "We have been counting it 
as one of the achievements of our civilization, that every man may 
absolutely control his own. No man shall be forced to sell, and no 
man shall be forced to buy ; no man shall be forced to work against 
his will, or for a person he does not like, or for a price that does not 
suit him. If a man has a bushel of wheat, he may set his price on 



— 36 — 

it, and keep it until he can get his price. But he may not compel 
another man to buy it, nor prevent his neighbor from selling for less. 
If a man has a day's labor, he may set his own price on it and re- 
fuse to work till he can get his price, but may not compel another 
to employ him, nor prevent his neighbor from working for less. If 
these principles are wrong, then our whole social system is wrong, 
and the entire process of thought for the last five hundred years has 
been drifting the wrong way, and must be reversed. That process 
of thought and experience has been steadily toward entire individ- 
ual freedom. 

" The judgment of the civilized world— a judgment growing more 
clear and consistent and decided as experience has justified its 
soundness— that judgment is, that in the long run, and in the broad- 
est scope, it is wisest and best that every man should dispose of his 
own as best he may. That judgment, growing up in the progress 
of history, is going to stand, and will be applied more and more 
thoroughly and consistently as it is understood. 

" The outcome of the late strike illustrates the power of truth. 
Had these men been right, they would have been resistless. They 
would have created a revolution if they could have appealed to 
the moral sense of men, or even their own moral sense. But thfeir 
attitude was plainly wrong, and the good sense of the great country 
soon crystallized about the truth, and took form against them. Their 
own better judgment recoiled, and their front was broken by con- 
cussion with the truth." 

I have stated this whole natter just as the facts demonstrate, 
but in so doing I do not say that the laboring men are all wrong, 
and those who own and operate railways are right; I do not say 
this, for it is impossible foi power and wealth, uncontrolled by well 
tested experience and just laws, to not err; men who own and 
operate railways have the same passions, appetites and propensities 
as men who labor, and are liable to err, and to even do injustice. 
But the laboring man's remedy is not in striking, his crime is strik- 
ing; there is no law civil or divine that will justify any one or more 
men in attacking in an unlawful manner any principle of human 
society which applies alike to all. Let me illustrate. There is no 
branch of human toil under our form of government, and no ofiicial 
position, that is not open to every citizen of the government; there- 
fore where it is possible for a railway engineer to inherit $200,000 or 
$300,000, thus enabling him to buy railway stock, or build a railway, 



— 37 — 

and thereby secure the presidency of the company, such engineer 
has no moral or legal right to make war upon any man because he 
holds a position above him. 

I am confident there is a spirit of justice pervading our entire 
social and political fabric that will not long delay in correcting any 
injustice that may be done to any class of our people, and in any 
field of toil. Time is the evil genius that stands between capital 
and labor ; capital can wait, labor cannot, and herein lies the secret 
of the contest. But labor will regulate its own wages, just as the 
ebb and flow of prosperity regulates the rents of the rich man. To 
fix a standard of wages all over this country in any field of toil is 
as impossible as to fix a standard of height for all men. Labor 
must be regulated as all other questions are, by some fundamental 
principles. It has never been a question among men how to prevent 
too much work, hence the principle upon which to found labor must 
be full work and full pay. The laborer must own himself and work 
according to his own wants and inclination ; I therefore pronounce 
the eight-hour law both unwise and a source of vast evil to the 
country. I so told Charles Sumner when the Senate was taking the 
vote. He voted against it. Now the clamor of the so-called 
laboring men is for full wages for eight hours' labor. The govern- 
ment ought to repeal the law and re-enact a higher law, making full 
work and full pay the law for him who owns and him who earns. 

One of the great difficulties now before the country is the 
opportunity for fools and demagogues. The clamor of the mob 
inspires their patriotism and humanity, and they at once become 
statesmen of uncommon wisdom and ability. They talk of labor- 
ing men as if they were an especial class of men from whom God 
Almighty withheld his decree, that "by the sweat of the brow shalt 
thou eat bread all the days of thy life." The laboring man is he 
who works in any field of honest toil, no matter whether he carries 
a hod or runs a ship across the sea, no matter whether he plows the 
sod or executes the law, no matter whether he watches a herd on the 
plains of Chaldea or helps to build a tower of Babel. 

I would like to tell the demagogue who is so willing to espouse 
a cause about which he knows nothing, that there is no labor ques- 
tion that is not also a question of government, of commerce and 
civilization, and that when he consents to be a patriot for the pur- 
pose of getting an office he ought to remember that all our labor 
and commercial interests are so blended with our civilization that 
*' one touch of nature makes all akin." 



— 38 — 

The men that build tlie locomotives are not the men that strike. 
The men who strike are the men who band themselves together for 
that purpose. The one fundamental purpose of the Brotherhood of 
Engineers is to take law and the rights of others in their own hands 
when any pretext arises to give them an opportunity. 

When English cabs were lirst put on the locomotives on the 
Baltimore and Ohio Railway the engineers struck; they refused to 
work until the cabs were taken off. They said if the locomotive 
should run off of the track they could not escape from danger. 
They would now strike again if the cabs were taken off. The same 
law governs all people who band themselves in any form of human 
organization. Such become clannish, tyrannical, dictatorial and jeal- 
ous of others. I care not what the organization may be. whether in the 
name of labor or religion, or secret societies, or anything else. Give 
me the man that has sufficient manhood to trust all his rights and 
interests and the rights and interests of his family to citizenship, 
and to the laws of his country, then give me the nation that is made 
of such men, and hate and hypocrisy will leave the earth, 

THE GROWTH OF POPULATION, 

I now pass to consider the growth of population under our Con- 
stitution, According to Malthus, any people well fed and well clad 
and clothed will double their numbers every thirty-three and a 
third years ; according to George Combe, we double every twenty- 
five years, and according to Dr, Elder, we double every twenty- 
three and a half years. Taking either estimate for a standard 
of authority, we shall have near one hundred million of popula- 
tion at the close of this century, and the child is now born who 
will see over four hundred million of population subsisting in 
plenty and comfort under our Constitution. The predominant 
blood of our population is that masterful Anglo-Saxon, which 
has made Germany the most powerful of European nations, and 
England the queen of commerce and the mistress of the seas. In 
the language of another: " It is a remarkable fact that the several 
successive streams of westward migration of the white Aryan race, 
from the primitive Paradise, in the neighborhood of the primeval 
cities of Sogd and Balkh, in High Asia, long separated in times of 
migration, and for the most part distinct in the European areas 
finally occupied by them, and which, in the course of its grand 
march of twenty thousand years or more, has created nearly the 
whole of the civilization, arts, sciences and literature of this globe^ 



— 39 — 

building seats of tixed habitation and great cities, successively, in 
the rich valleys of the Ganges, the Euphrates, the Nile, the rivers 
and isles of Greece, the Tiber and the Po, the Danube, the Rhine, 
the Elbe, the Seine and Thames, wandering children of the same 
great family, are now, in these latter times, brought together again 
in their descendants and representatives, Semitic, Pelasgic, Celtic, 
Teutonic, and Sclavonic, here in the newly discovered common land 
of promise, and are commingled (especially in this great Valley of 
-the Mississipi3i) into one common brotherhood of race, language, 
law and liberty." 

The native races found on this continent afford ample evidence 
of the adaptation of the physical condition of the country to pro- 
duce a united and homogeneous people. In its population many 
races are represented, but all are fusing and blending into one com- 
pact nation, and soon the world will behold on this continent a new 
and superior type of man, an American type wrought out of the 
best blood of all other races. Then, contemplating the future 
growth of population under our supreme law, are we not admonished 
to look deeper into the constitution of our national life, and meet 
face to face the new and confronting problems ? Must we not look 
wisely and timely to the means of national salvation essential to 
the perpetuity of the Republic and the maintenance of our civil- 
ization ? We must not be blind to the fact that with succeeding 
years we shall be compelled to pass through most of the experience 
incident to other and former nations. 

As there is no sliip that does not meet a stormy sea, so there is 
no nation that does not have its difficulties to encounter. But I 
believe if we choose wisdom, justice, intelligence, humanity and 
power with which to try and determine all our national questions, 
that no serious trouble will befall us for a thousand years to come. 
National strength is our greatest hope. 

God forbid that any future Sesostris, another Attila, Alaric or 
Tamerlane will be born of the follies and failures of the American 
people and let loose to deluge this land with blood and plant the 
banner of misguided ambition on the graves of our fathers. I want 
no communes imported to this country by deck passage to be per- 
mitted to band together with lawless intent to destroy the wealth 
of generations of honest toil. We can avert such fatalities if we 
act wisely and timely. 



40 



THE TEXAS PACIFIC RAILWAY. 



Already duties of vital concern to the nation demand execution. 
Our country must be built up. A nation, like a steam engine, must 
have safety-valves. It is not enough in the establishment of gov- 
ernment, to alone fix restraints on the people, and on the law-makers, 
and those charged with the duty of administering the laws, but 
beyond all these, it is the duty of a nation to provide for the redund- 
ancy of its population, and such provisions may be denominated 
national safety-valves. Already such is the prostration of our in- 
dustry, that thousands of our population are out of employment, 
and it is the bounden duty of the government to open avenues of 
labor to those able and willing to work. 

The first step in this direction, and the first step to relieve the 
country of hard times, is for Congress to repeal the resumption act, 
and then pass the Texas Pacific Railway Bill. For Congress to 
refuse to build that road, is to do an injustice to one section of the 
country to favor another section. The South sent out the Alabama 
upon the high seas to prey upon the commerce of this country, but 
ihat vessel did more to build up the North than all the banks of 
England. It drove capital from the seas, it unlocked the capital of 
the sea-board cities, and sent it out over the Northwestern States to 
build bridges, foundries, factories and railroads. That vessel ex- 
erted the influence that bridged every river and connected every 
city in the Northwest by rail, and achieved in the building of the 
Pacific Railway the greatest commercial event of our generation. 
The building of the Texas Pacific will add to the national wealth 
and to the national character a thousand-fold more than it will cost. 
It will give labor to many thousands of unemployed men, and plant 
the seeds of empire on the frontier, that will soon spread our consti- 
tution over the city of Montezuma. Five thousand men at work on 
the Texas Pacific will soon found a colony in Mexico. 

The endorsement by the general government of the bonds of the 
Texas Pacific, will give 5,000 men immediate employment. 

The nation owes the Texas Pacific Road to the South. It owes 
it to that region of country to which and over which a great wave of 
Saxon blood will soon move in its course to the tropical lands and 
waters of the Western Hemisphere. Thitherward are our people 
looking, and thither will they go. The next great movement of our 
population will be southward. 



— 41 — 
THE IMPEOVEMENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 

There is still another work of incalculable value to our national 
growth and to the commerce of the country — the improvement of 
the Mississippi river and its tributaries. I have it from the ablest 
railway man in the valley of the Mississippi, that if the Mississippi 
river and its tributaries were rightly improved, they would be more 
valuable to the commerce of the Mississippi Valley than all the 
railways in it. If a work so great and so important presents itself 
to the nation, must we not insist that Congress shall rise to the 
dignity of the duty, and establish a vast system of river improve- 
ments? Let us have a great national highway, a great ship-river, 
from Chicago, St. Louis,' Pittsburg and Omaha to the Gulf of 
Mexico. Let us make the rivers worthy the respect and use of the 
nation, and fit channels through which to transport our commerce 
to the sea. 

These two important works, the building of the Texas Pacific 
Railway and the improvement of the Mississippi and its tributaries, 
are now demanded of the general government. Besides being great 
safety-valves to the nation, they will add incalculable wealth to the 
country. It is therefore the bounden duty of Congress to order both 
to be done. 

A LARGE STANDING ARMY. 

Beyond these present urgent demands upon the government to 
provide labor for the unemployed population, there are still other 
safety-valves which must be provided for future security. It may 
be found necessary to create a large standing army, which would 
absorb many unemployed persons every year. A nation must have 
a police force as well as a city. I think it is not difficult to prove 
that it is far cheaper for a city to have a strong police force than to 
not have one. If this be true, I think it can also be demonstrated 
that a nation ought to have a police or a standing army. Power, 
with the ability for decisive action, never was an element of danger 
in any nation, but always a guarantee of safety. In view of the 
great future of this country, and the necessity of maintaining the 
peace and the prosperity of the people, it is all-important that those 
charged with making the laws should provide the means for national 
safety in advance of danger. To create a large army will require 
no infringement on our republican institutions. The government 
must possess full power to put down all troubles of whatever char- 



— 4:2 — 

acter, and in whatever part of the county, and without any regard 
to state and municipal authorities, referring only the duty first to 
local authority without permitting red tape or party interference to 
stand in the way. It must be given the power to control telegraph 
lines and railways from the very moment banded organizations, 
with intent of violence, begin to inaugurate trouble. If the tele- 
graphic news about the strikes last July had been withheld from the 
public press, the trouble would not have grown half so formidable. 
Another national safety-valve could be established by the inaugura- 
tion by the general government of a system of public works. There 
are great parks over the continent that ought to be improved. 
Labor thus directed would call into requisition many unemployed 
people. Timber ought to be cultivated on the plains and artesian 
wells made. Such work would afford labor for many years to come. 

THE LABOR QUESTION OF THE FUTURE. 

I now desire to go back in the discussion and call your attention to 
the fact that there is a muttering in the storm, a social earthquake in 
the future. There is unconsciously a great and a real labor question 
growing up in the future, and in the language of another, " I desire 
to speak to you of human powers and of human sufferings ; of the 
powers and the sufferings, not of the selected few to whom fortune 
has assigned property and station, and along with these, voice and in- 
fluence in the world's councils ; but of the Children of Labor, of the 
millions who say little and do much, by whom the world is fed and 
clothed, by whom cities are built and forests subdued, and deserts 
reclaimed. I desire to speak of those whose strong arms ceaselessly 
tugging at the oar, have impelled through all time the bark of life ; 
and briefly to ask of the Past how it has treated them ; of the 
Present, what is their actual condition ; of the Future, what may be 
their coming fate ?" 

"There is no real wealth in this world but the labor of man. 
Were the mountains made of gold and the valleys of silver, the 
world would not be one grain of corn the richer ; no one comfort 
would be added to the human race. In consequence of our consid- 
eration for the precious metals, one man is enabled to heap to him- 
self luxuries at the expense of the necessaries of his neighbors." 

In the organization of human society, and especially under a 
representative form of government, each man and woman still retains, 
as in a state of nature, his or her individuality, with the right to 
make the best they can of themselves under the circumstances. If 



— 43 — 

one man is stronger than another, he is entitled to what his strength 
will bring. If one woman is more industrious than another, she is 
entitled to what her industry will bring her. And so each one is 
entitled to the best use of the gifts of nature. But often a superior 
gift unfits a person to use another faculty, and if human society and 
the distribution of labor does not aflTord the individual an opportu- 
nity to use his best gift, then civilization is likely to intiict a penalty 
upon such and compel them to want. Bui in every land and under 
all forms of government there is a limit to opportunity and to occu- 
pation. This opens a wide field for contest, and gives to one man 
advantages over another. It constantly widens the gulf between 
opportunity and occupation on one side, and eff'ort and want on the 
other side. These grow into two extremes of human society and 
forces upon all populous countries the one great condition of man- 
kind, which becomes the human problem of the world, viz : That 
as civilization advances, the masses darken and decline. How to 
prevent this condition of human society has been the study of the 
social architects of the world. And so long as human society and 
human governments are so organized as to limit occupation and 
opportunity, so long will the vast horde clamor for bread, and that, 
too, in a land of plenty. 

I readily admit that it is utterly impossible to establish human 
equality among men. It cannot be done among the trees, the rivers^ 
nor the stars. But it can be more nearly approached among the 
world's people, because they are endowed with reason, aspiration 
and a sense of justice. And while it is true that a man and woman 
born into the world must stand upon the individuality and capabili- 
ties of each, with but two principles of right upon which to stand — 
viz: mine and thine — the very moment society and government is 
organized, a new principle enters into the account of human rela- 
tions, a third interest — our interest, or the public interest. Under a 
system of civilization based upon a craving, selfish and ambitious 
individuality, that permits the big fish to eat up the little ones, the 
third or public interest is based almost wholly on the rights and 
protection of property. Under such a system men are far more 
indiflerent about securing and protecting the lives and happiness of 
each, than they are about the protection of the property of each. 
The palaces, ships, and commercial houses, which are the creation 
of labor alone, are more guarded than human lives and human 
happiness. 

I do not object to wealth ; on the contrary, I would do all in my 



— 44 — 

power to promote the growth of wealth on this continent and in our 
great cities. But unless the human mind is ameliorated by the 
growth of the intellectual and moral faculties, men will grow selfish 
in the accumulation of property, and forget that want and misery 
are begging for bread and for comfort, even unto death. 

I do not dream of the millenium, but I do look forward to the 
day when this grasping, heartless civilization under which we now 
live, and which is founded upon unconscious individuality, will be 
supplanted by a social order founded upon humanity and the public 
good. A civilization that plants no faith in blood. A civilization, 
the efforts of which will be so blended with the purposes of the gov- 
ernment as to unfold a new manifestation of public life ; which will 
secure to every citizen living under the constitution happiness and 
comfort, and the security of life as well as the protection of prop- 
erty. I believe the day is not distant when wealth will be made, in 
a degree, responsible for poverty, and that intelligence will be made 
responsible for ignorance. 

To-day poverty and ignorance cost more than they ought. They 
beget crime and fill poor-houses, jails and penitentiaries, and load 
society with unnecessary burdens. And yet for all these evils we 
fall back on the labor question and then charge the government and 
society for sins of omission and commission. 

Now I believe that under our constitution, and on this conti- 
nent, this question can be met and solved. It will cost far less to 
solve it than to leave it unsolved, and its solution would be a sub- 
lime achievement for humanity and for this nation. Said Carlyle : 
"The saddest sight under tlie sun is to see a man able and willing 
to work, thence lacking the necessaries of life because there is no 
work to do. Hunger begets in man a grim monster. The hungry 
man doubts the favor of God, and turns wickedly upon his fellows 
and braves all law to get bread." 

THE GREAT NATION OF FUTURITY. 

I now pass to the last part of the discussion — the great nation of 
futurity and the party of the future. 

" Our national birth was the beginning of a new history, the 
formation and progress of an untried political system, which separ- 
ates us from the past and connects lis with, the future only ; and so 
far as regards the natural rights of man, in moral, political and 
national life, we may confidently assume that our country is des- 
tined to be the great nation of futurity." It is so destined because 



— 45 — 

the principle upon which a nation is organized fixes its destiny, and 
that of equality is perfect, is universal. It presides in all the oper- 
ations of the physical world, and it is also the conscious law of the 
soul, the self-evident dictate of morality, which accurately defines 
the duty of man to man, and consequently of man's rights as man. 
I confidently believe that on this continent is growing up the great 
nation and the great people of the world. The expansive future is 
our arena and for our history. We are entering on its untrodden 
space ; we are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can 
set limits to our onward march ? The far-reaching, the boundless fu- 
ture will be the era of American greatness. In our future growth we 
shall attain to organic liberty — "" when each neighbor, yielding to 
an irresistible law of attraction, will seek a new life in becoming a 
part of the great whole." 

THE EELIGION OF THE FUTURE. 

As we grow to organic liberty, legal bandages or restraints 
will be taken off of the people, and they will have fewer laws and 
less disobedience. Men will do by nature the things contained in 
the law. Then will the great heart of humanity grow in our people, 
until by an all-prevading religious conviction human happiness 
will be protected as well as human life, and over this great land 
will grow an empire of mind as well as of might. 

With the eyes of Cassandra I see in the far off future and 
behold the generations of men yet to live under our constitu- 
tion, governed by an all-prevailing social and religious law of life. 
On this continent and under our constitution is destined to be 
developed in tlie people a new and higher religious sentiment than 
has yet grown out of the human soul — an all-powerful spirit of good 
permeating the life-deeds of the people. Such a new manifestation 
of religion is destined to grow up on this continent. Said Machia- 
velli, "The greatest man is he who founds a religion for the people, 
and next to the founder of a religion is he who founds a nation." 

The religions idea is the highest idea in man's nature, and it 
has demonstrated in the Quaker organization, the Mohammedan and 
Chinese people, a power of unity and use superior to any manifesta- 
tion of civil government. The operation of these religions in all 
the activities of life are typical of the new religion of this people, 
and its principles are now rapidly unfolding on this continent, and 
will ere long invite the entire people into its simple secrets. The 
religious sentiment in man is not only the highest, but it has the 



— 46 — 

greatest cohesive power of any element of his mind. It is this pure 
principle, this unitizing conviction of right and wrong, that is most 
desired to grow in man until it pervades the national life and unites 
the entire people with the injunctions of the Higher Law. Its spirit 
will yet bloom and fraternize the American people as a Magnolian 
thought of the human soul. 

THE PARTY OF THE FUTURE. 

To vindicate substantially what I have presented with other 
matters of national concern, and relating to our civilization, I 
anticipate at an early day the birth of the party of the future. It 
will be made of the active, thinking and progressive men of the 
country. It will announce the essential principles destined to con- 
trol the political activities of our people during the coming century, 
and give to this nation a continental life and a proper status before 
the world. 

There is no longer any political party that embodies the vital 
needs of the people, no party founded upon the principles destined 
to nationalize this great government and rightly direct its conti- 
nental growth. 

The great men that once gave character and power to the Demo- 
cratic party now sleep under the sod ; they died with the principles 
upon which that parry was founded, and for which they fought its 
battles before the people and at the ballot-box. The name only 
remains and serves to represent two antagonistic extremes of politi- 
cal society — opulence and ignorance — two extremes that cannot 
endure in the progressive march of our humanity. 

So, too, most of the great men that founded and made illustri- 
ous the Republican party, have passed from mortal sight into ever- 
lasting history and heaven. That party was born of the progres- 
sive and religious spirit of the American people. It was organized' 
to achieve an end in the organic condition of the nation; that end 
has been achieved and a new liberty given to mankind, and a new 
progress to the nation. But the reactive forces of a constantly 
growing and progressive national spirit have rendered the Republi- 
can party powerless to serve the purposes of the continental life of 
this great nation. Every succeeding election demonstrates the ele- 
ments of decay in each party, and the impossibility of either to 
meet the wants and progressive desires of the American people. 

The Presidential campaign of 1876 was nothing but a politi- 
cians' squabble for office, and the sequel demonstrated it to be a con- 



— 47 — 

test, not of principles but of party names. Neither party declared a 
single distinctive fundamental principle in its platform, and the 
people were called upon to vote as the rum-sellers, demagogues and 
hired politicians directed them. But in vain will the drill-sergeants 
of decaying party organizations flourish menacingly their truncheons 
and angrily insist that the files shall be closed and straightened ; 
in vain will the whippers-in of parties once vital, because rooted in 
the vital needs of the hour, protest against straying and bolting in 
the contest of 1880. For that will be one of the most important 
campaigns ever known to the American people. In it old men and 
young men will come forth in new political garments, heralding the 
political faith and practice destined to govern and guide the people 
and this nation for a century hence. 

This new party will be essentially American in its principles 
and aims, holding that the highest political, industrial and commer- 
cial duty of the American people will be to perfect the American 
government, and give it greater character abroad, and to devote the 
energies of the American people to the development ot the resources 
of the continent of America and the Western Hemisphere; and 
shaping its financial, industrial and commercial policies in harmony 
with the interests and necessities of our continental people, and 
especially in accordance with the highest rights and interests of 
those people living in the Valley of the Mississippi. 

That such a new party is now about to be born into existence 
as a result of a fuller and freer expression of the vigorous and pro- 
gressive thoughts of the American people, there can be no manner of 
doubt. Then let us hail such a new manifestation of political life 
with deeper and more hopeful convictions about the future greatness 
and grandeur of the American nation, and with renewed energies 
and higher aims let us go forward with the pure purpose and patri- 
otic devotion of the Roman Cato to contest and to conquer the new 
and untried problems of the future, remembering that the greatest 
law-giver is God. 



What shall we do to be Saved? 



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